My eldest son Ari moved to Phoenix a few months ago, after getting married to a woman from Scottsdale. Though I was there for a few days around the wedding ceremony, I was too busy to try fishing in Arizona at the time.
For this trip, my plan was to spend a few days in Phoenix visiting my son and daughter in law, then head over to Miami, to visit my daughter and her family. I was only spending a few days in Phoenix, and being that my son works at Sky Harbor airport, I didn't bother renting a car. I planed to fish solo, on the SRP canal near his home on foot on the Friday, and left Sunday's fishing plans with my son, open.
I had watched a few videos on some canal fishing in the area, and had an idea that I may encounter a mix of common and grass carp, catfish, bass, bluegills and tilapia. I brought along a small tacklebox with a few lures and some terminal tackle, and my telescopic rod, paired with a 30 series Penn reel, as usual.
Day 1:
I was up well before sunrise, but with the cooler nights, I figured I'd let the sun come up and warm the surface a bit before getting started.
I got to my spot on the SRP (Salt River project) about an hour later. The SRP is a series of drainage canals that flow around parts of Phoenix and it's suburbs. They get stocked with grass carp to control vegetation, so any of those caught, must be released. The other species are included in the ones I mentioned above. Current, water levels, and clarity, all vary seasonally.
The sections of canal that I tried fishing were all quite shallow, probably 2 to 4 feet deep. Water was crystal clear, and the current flowing quite quickly. I started spotting fish right away, mainly a mix of smaller grass carp and common carp, with the odd catfish mixed in. The number of fish in the canal is mindboggling. With basically no food sources, I figured they'd be hungry, but didn't have any bait to present to them, except for a slice of bread. After about 5 minutes of trying to cast breadballs, I realized it would be useless, as the current kept taking the bait off my hook.
Walking towards the next intersection, I was lucky to find a grocery store, where I was able to pick up some frozen corn.
Now, armed with what normally would be premium bait for both carp species, I was confident that I should have a rather easy time hooking some carp. I set up about 30-40 feet upstream of a large school of carp, and drifted my corn as hookbait to where they were. I also tried chumming some corn, but the current was too strong for them to remain in place long enough to get them feeding.
To my surprise, not only did all the carp avoid my bait, they actually spooked any time any corn or even slack line came anywhere close to them. I eventually set up slightly further upstream, but same story, just a bunch of carp fleeing from my setup. At least the scenery was nice, and temperature warming enough for me to remove my hoodie.
After about an hour with nothing but a small line bump, I figured I'd try sight fishing for them instead. With more visibility now that were were mid morning, every fish I saw and snuck up on, was super finicky. The slightest splash sent them darting, and when I managed to drift bait up close to them, they spooked and darted as soon as they noticed my line.
Getting frustrated with the situation, I made my way up to a small dam on the canal that I had marked on my Google map. The current below the dam was a bit stronger, and I noticed that the grass carp were just about gone, mainly common carp with a few small catfish at that spot. When I got above the dam, I found the largest concentration of grass carp I have ever seen. Most were under 10 lbs, though I did notice a couple that were definitely over 20 lbs.
I spent another 2 or so hours trying to have them take my bait. As they were trapped with the dam behind them, I was able to present the corn right in middle of a school of 10 to 20 carp. Still, they just about avoided the corn, despite having it lying inches away from them.
At one point, I noticed a good sized koi in the 15 lbs range hovering around my line, that came within 3-4 inches, but never took the bait.
Eventually, I called it a day after nearly 5 hours of fishing / trekking the SRP canal, without hooking anything. Sort of frustrating, as I thought I'd have a very high chance of catching my first grass carp, but at least I had eliminated the spot for the planned Sunday outing with my son.
Over the weekend, we discussed potential spots to try fishing. As most of the area surround Phoenix is the Sonoran desert, rivers and creeks tend to vary greatly by the season. Often, a Google map with show a river, and all that's actually there is a bone dry riverbed. As such, we decided on trying to fish a reservoir instead, as they aren't any natural lakes in the area. While I'm not the biggest fan of fishing reservoirs from shore, I figured we'd at least find enough water to cast into, which would be a good start.
We decided on fishing Pleasant Lake, which is about 40 minutes drive from my son's place in Phoenix. While the lake is currently above what is considered full pool, it's still about 25-30 feet lower than seasonal highs. Water is quite clear, and significantly cooled off since it's summer peak in extreme heat, and significantly less boat traffic on it now, even for a warm Sunday afternoon.
As the lake sits in middle of the Sonoran desert, we had to look out for rattlesnakes. In addition, even more dangerous, are wild boars, and wild burros, which are remnants of donkey's abandoned by silver miners long ago. They have since taken to the desert, and are extremely territorial, attacking humans that get too close to them. Their droppings all all around the lake, as it's their main water source, and there are quite a few signs posted as well.
We entered the state park, which cost $7 per day, and parked not too far from the main boat ramp. Time to start trekking and fishing along the rocky shorelines.
Immediately, we started seeing schools of gizzard shad swimming near the shorelines. We tried throwing a variety of smaller lures at them without any success. We even tried snagging some (which is legal in Arizona for non game species), but weren't really equipped to do so, and they were both very finicky, and slightly too deep.
After a while, we decided to just trek along miles of shoreline, while casting a variety of lures. As I came around the first bend, I encountered a decent dropoff, and on my second cast, I hooked a decent largemouth bass, casting a spinnerbait.
I was thrilled to have landed my first fish of the day so quickly, which was also my first Arizona fish ever, caught in a spectacular desert setting.
A few casts later, Ari missed another bass while casting a topwater lure. We stuck around the spot for a while, hoping for more fish, but it didn't happen. We spent the next few hours trekking a couple miles of shoreline without much success. Eventually, we headed back to our first spot, but didn't manage to hook any more fish.
On the way out, we decided to get a few desert pictures together, as we don't get to spend enough time with each other any more. Various species of cactus made for some interesting backgrounds.
And sure enough, as we were just about done taking our picture, we noticed some of the wild burros starting to congregate in the valley below. They were quite far down to where we were safe, but I wasn't going to attempt getting any closer for some clearer pictures, without an escape route.
All in all, fishing in Arizona was tougher than I expected. After all, we were smack in middle of the desert. Still, fishing with my eldest son again was very memorable, as over the years, he and I have been though many adventures togethers. I was just happy to get the chance to do it again.
I flew out to Miami later that night, to begin my next phase of the trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment